


The Lovecats

by Last_Chance_Anna



Series: STAY [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cuddling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Sweetness Overload, Tony Gets a Cat, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, nothing but fluff, wow did I really write this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 15:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22158379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Last_Chance_Anna/pseuds/Last_Chance_Anna
Summary: Tony gets a cat.  That's really it.While this is definitely a continuation of the STAY series, this can totally be read as a stand-alone story.  For those who haven't read the entire series, all you really need to know is Steve and Tony are an established couple now, and Tony wanted a pet.  The rest is pretty self-explanatory.
Relationships: Friday & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Original Cat Character
Series: STAY [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543645
Comments: 18
Kudos: 53





	The Lovecats

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! I couldn't stay away from my boys! If you decided to take a chance on this story in spite of not reading the rest of the series, welcome! Hope you enjoy a little Stony sweetness! If you're not new, Welcome back!! And...this is a little weird, not having to wade through the angst, no? ;)
> 
> I have two more stories planned. The next may be a little more angsty than this one. I don't have it written yet, so I can't say for sure, but I will get it done soon.
> 
> It's good to be back!

“I think he hates me.”

“No, Captain. I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.”

Steve glanced upwards. Tony teased him for doing that, for talking to the ceiling when he was talking to FRIDAY, but he couldn’t seem to break the habit.

“No, FRI, he does. He hates me.”

“No,” she assured him. “No one hates you. Just give him some time.”

Steve scratched down a few notes on the margin of his textbook. It pained him in a vague way to do that. When his professor had said in their first class that not only did he _want_ them to write in their textbooks, it was an actual _requirement_ , Steve had felt his stomach churn sickly.

You didn’t write in books.

Every child from the time they were old enough to grasp a crayon in their pudgy little fist knew that. You didn’t write in books.

But, apparently, in Dr. Anderson’s class, you did. 

Steve was getting used to it, but it broke his heart a little every time he jotted a name or a date into that pristine white margin.

“How much time?” he muttered. “It’s been two weeks.”

“I know,” FRIDAY soothed. “But it will be alright.”

“I guess,” he said, and fell into a moody silence while he read and reread the same paragraph four times before finally closing his book with a sigh. 

“Where is he, anyway, FRI?”

“In the lab,” she answered with a tiny note of humor in her voice. “As usual, Captain.”

“‘Kay.”

In the lab. Of course, he was in the lab. Where else would he be?

Steve gave up trying to study. It was getting close to being close to dinner-time. If he started now and moved slow, by the time he was done cooking, it would _almost_ be their regular time to sit down at the table.

He took the chicken out of the fridge and pounded it thin, then set up a breading station--flour, beaten egg, Panko bread crumbs--and breaded the chicken.

Between the two of them, Tony was the better cook. Steve knew it. _Tony_ knew it, but Tony was a special-occasion-only kind of guy. He let Steve do the heavy lifting on the day-to-day front, and that was fine with Steve. He liked cooking. Liked taking individual, disparate things and turning them into something new. Something more than the sum of its parts. In a way, it was nearly god-like, that act of transformation. Maybe that was blasphemy. Steve didn’t care. He didn’t care much about blasphemy anymore. He’d stopped caring about the same time he’d encountered the Tesseract and realized there might be more out there than he’d previously believed. Or, at least, different. He still believed in God. He just wasn’t so sure the God he believed in now got as worked up over the little things as the one he’d believed in when he was a kid. 

The God he believed in now was a little more forgiving.

Steve just kind of wished a certain someone in this house was the same.

He poured a little olive oil in the bottom of the saute pan and fried the chicken lightly. It smelled good. Warm and inviting. Frying wasn’t the healthiest choice, but sometimes, you just had to go with what tasted good. And he knew this would taste good. It was one of his go-to meals. Tony always raved about it, no matter how often he made it.

“Damn, baby, this is heaven in my mouth, right now.”

That’s what he’d said last time. 

Steve had been a little embarrassed by the flush that crept up his body at those words, and when he sucked Tony down later that evening in bed, the words pounded in his own head: _Heaven in my mouth, right now._

Steve put the thought of that right out of his head. He was feeling bad enough without a raging hard-on complicating things even more.

He made a quick butter and lemon pan sauce, then threw together a salad. It was a simple meal. Nothing fancy, but he still felt proud of it nonetheless. He wondered what his mom would think if she could see this. If she could see her only son puttering around the kitchen making dinner, and washing up as he went, and setting the table, and getting out candles because it had been a while since they’d had a candlelit dinner, and even though it was just a Wednesday, and it was just chicken cutlets and salad, Steve still wanted it to be nice. Especially tonight. Especially after two weeks of being hated. He wondered if she would be proud of what she saw. He knew she would be proud of what he’d _been_ , but would she be proud of what he’d _become?_

Steve adjusted FRIDAY’s daisies and smiled a little. He kind of thought she would.

“Still in the lab, FRI?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Okay.”

Steve straightened his shoulders and headed for the lab.

It was smaller than the one in the Tower, but that same manic energy still hung in a haze around this room. Steve was still amazed at the things he saw when he came in here. Still excited and interested and frightened by all the things that began as only flashes inside Tony’s complicated, wondrous mind before finding their way down to his hands and made into reality. It was still, even after all these years, difficult for him to conceive of--the sheer magnitude of things Tony could do--but it made him proud. Proud and happy to think that it was his man who was capable of that. His man who could create such brilliant things from nothing. His man.

And speaking of his man…

“Hey, baby,” Tony said, smiling at him as he came into the room.

“Hey.”

“I was just thinking about you.”

Steve's eyes darted around the room, then he went to Tony’s side. “Oh, yeah? What were you thinking?”

“Nothing,” Tony answered. He was holding a pair of pliers and was using them to hold a piece of metal. It looked like steel. Not as strong as vibranium, but strong enough. A blowtorch sat next to his right hand. “Just you. You know, in general.”

Steve nodded to the blowtorch. “You were using that and thinking about me?” he asked. “Should I be scared?”

Tony cocked an eyebrow. “Scared? You should be flattered. It’s hot. You’re hot.” He shrugged. “Makes sense.”

Steve didn’t know about hot, but he was certainly very warm, all of a sudden. He glanced around again, then slipped his arms around Tony’s waist. “I was thinking about you, too.”

Tony put the pliers down. “What were _you_ thinking?” he asked, molding himself against Steve’s body.

“Lots of stuff.”

Tony reached up and curled his fist into Steve’s blond hair. “That sounds like very important information that I need to have.” He tugged the golden strands a little. “Tell me everything.”

Steve bent his head and put his mouth against Tony’s ear, ready to tell him all kinds of things, but before he could, a heavy weight thumped against his back. He jolted on his feet at the sudden hiss in his ear and the claws on-- _in_ \--his shoulder.

“Tony!” he half-shouted. “Get this goddamn thing off me.”

“Oh,” Tony cooed, to the cat, not Steve. To the cat. The goddamn _cat_. “Did daddy scare you? Yelling like that? Poor thing.”

He pulled the cat gently off Steve’s back and curled it against his chest, pet it and kissed the top of its head.

It lay in Tony’s arms, green eyes glaring at Steve, its ears flat. FRIDAY could say what she wanted, but those eyes were filled with hatred. Oh, it was coming off him in waves. Steve glared back. The feeling was mutual.

“Do not call me ‘daddy’,” Steve grumbled. “I am not that thing’s daddy.”

Tony threw him a distraught look and put one hand over the cat’s ear, pressing the other softly against his chest. “Steve, _god_. Don’t say that in front of him. You’re going to hurt his feelings.”

“It’s a cat.”

“He’s not just a cat,” Tony said, cuddling the large yellow animal closer. “He’s our baby.”

“It’s a fucking _cat,_ Tony.”

“Oh, don’t mind daddy, Sir Purr. He’s just grumpy because he hasn’t eaten yet,” Tony said, petting the cat’s sinewy back.

They’d gone to the pet shop in town after Tony said he wanted a pet, but even though there were a dozen cute little kitten puffballs to choose from, Tony had no interest in them. He looked them over with a baleful eye, then wandered away to look at the turtles.

A few days later, Steve had come home from school and shopping, his arms filled with books and bags and pizza because he had another essay to write by Monday, and Tony had kept him up until four a.m. that morning doing things to him that were unspeakably dirty and unspeakably good, and now he was exhausted, and his outline was due tomorrow, and he wasn’t even halfway through it, and...and now there was a big yellow cat sitting on the kitchen counter staring at him with flat, green eyes.

“Tony,” Steve called.

The cat growled at the sound of his voice.

“Tony!”

Tony came into the room. “What are you yelling ab--Oh, look! You met.” He picked the cat up in his arms and brought it over to Steve. Steve took an involuntary step back. He didn’t think he’d ever seen such a murderous look in an animal’s eyes before.

“Steve, this is Sir Purr. Sir Purr, this is Steve.”

“Oh my god, Tony, no,” Steve pleaded. “You can’t be serious.”

“What?” Tony said, bouncing the cat like it was a baby. It purred in his arms, all the while looking at Steve like it wanted to kill him. 

Maybe it did.

“We were looking for a kitten,” Steve said. “This thing’s old. And...you know, it looks really pissed off.”

Tony rubbed his cheek against the yellow fur. “Sure, he’s a little _mature_ , but I like it.”

“Where did you even find it?”

“I went to the diner for lunch and he was in the parking lot.”

“He probably belongs to someone.”

“No. I asked Patty. She said he’d been hanging around the dumpsters the last couple days.” Tony shrugged. “I opened the car door and called him, and he jumped inside. He wanted to come home with me. Like he was just waiting for me.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but he could see how attached Tony already was. “You’re delusional,” he muttered, but he’d already given in. What Tony wanted, Tony got. And if it made him happy, Steve could put up with it.

But even now, two weeks later, he couldn’t say he _liked_ it.

Especially since it hated him.

And _especially_ especially since it rarely left Tony’s side.

“I’m not grumpy,” Steve protested. “It just hates me.”

“ _He_ ,” Tony corrected emphatically, “doesn’t hate you, baby. Maybe if you tried a little harder…”

Steve’s eyes rolled heavenward, and he bit his lip. His hands clenched into tight fists against his thighs. It was a _Lord, give me strength look_ , if ever there had been one.

“I have tried. I bought it toys, and treats, and I feed it every morning, and when it scratches on the window at four-thirty in the damn morning, I get up and let it in--”

“Have you tried talking to him?” Tony asked. “Or petting him?”

Oh, he’d talked to it, alright. When it reached out from under the couch and hooked its claws into Steve’s bare feet, he talked. When it bit his hand when he put its food dish on the floor, he’d talked. When it hissed at him every time he came into a room, he talked. He never yelled. He _talked._ At first, with a gentle, “I’m sorry” tone, then, when that didn’t work, a more firm one. Finally, the last few days, he’d broken into desperate pleading. The cat was unmoved. It hated him, so Steve had finally given up and decided to hate it right back.

So, yeah, Steve had talked. But, he _didn’t_ talk whenever it gave him a malice-filled look or jumped onto his shoulder whenever he tried to touch Tony, but that’s because Tony was there, and he didn’t want to end up having the conversation they were now, in fact, having.

“Come on,” Tony said. “Talk to him.”

Steve shoved his hands into his pockets. He didn’t want to talk to it.

“Come on.”

Steve sighed. “Hi, cat.”

Tony huffed a little laugh. “Say his name.”

“I don’t want to say its name.”

“ _His_ name, Steve. Say it.”

“Hi--” he looked at Tony, distressed. “I can’t say it, Tony. In fact, maybe that’s part of the reason he hates me. Because I let you name him such a dumb name.”

Tony switched the cat from one shoulder to the other. The cat allowed the manhandling with no fuss, just letting Tony maneuver it any way he wanted, all the while gazing into his face with enraptured green eyes.

“Okay, number one,” Tony said, “you didn’t let _me_ name him anything. He named himself. As soon as I saw him, I knew what his name was. And number two: Sir Purrari Stark-Rogers is the most awesome name in the history of names.”

“Named himself, huh? Pretty bold making himself a knight.”

Tony scratched between its ears. The cat purred with contentment. “You’re just pissed he outranks you.”

“I don’t think you doing it on our kitchen counter with a spoon makes a knighthood official, Tony.”

“Of course, it does.”

Steve watched Tony cuddle the cat and sighed. “Fine. Dinner’s ready.”

He turned and started out the door, but he only made it two steps before Tony was latching onto his arm.

“Hey,” Tony said, standing in front of him. He was frowning, worried, his dark eyes even darker. “Hey, what’s going on? Why are you upset?”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t do that. Talk to me.”

Steve looked at the floor, scuffed it with the toe of his shoe.

“Oh, baby,” Tony said, and Steve looked up. There had been a hint of laughter in his voice, and now there was a hint of laughter on his face. Steve flushed with embarrassment. “Please don’t tell me you’re jealous of Sir Purr.”

“I’m not jealous,” he muttered.

“Really? ‘Cause this seems like a jealous-face.”

“It’s not a jealous-face.”

“I don’t know. I’ve seen jealous-face before. This looks like that.”

“I’m _not_ jealous.”

Tony gave the cat another cuddle, then sat him gently on the nearest table. He slid his arms around Steve’s trim waist and pulled him closer. “He only outranks you in title, baby. _You’re_ still my best guy.”

Steve looked at the cat. It was watching him closely, the way it would watch an unsuspecting mouse. “Try telling _him_ that.”

Tony laughed and put his forehead against Steve’s shoulder. “What am I going to do with you two, huh?” he murmured.

“You could take one of us back to the dumpsters,” Steve said. “I’m sure somebody will come and pick _me_ up and take me home with them eventually.”

Tony laughed again. “Wow. I’d be mad at you if this wasn’t so adorable.” He squeezed Steve’s waist, then took his hand. “Okay. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you two need to make up.” He pulled Steve to the table where Sir Purr sat. “Pet him.”

“No.”

“Please, baby? For me?”

Steve sighed and Tony smiled. He knew when he had his way. He lifted one of Steve’s hands and put it on Sir Purr’s back, then slid it along the yellow fur. The cat glared at Steve for a moment, then closed his eyes as Tony guided Steve’s hand along his back.

“See?” Tony said. “That’s not so bad, is it?”

Steve lifted one shoulder. “I guess not.”

Tony reached up and pressed his mouth to Steve’s. “You really are adorable. How can a grown man be so adorable?”

Steve kissed Tony thoroughly, their hands still moving along the cat’s smooth back. “I’m not adorable. That’s a terrible thing to call someone,” he whispered.

Tony laughed softly. “If the shoe fits, baby.” He ran a finger over Steve’s jaw. “Now, I want you to do something else.”

“What?”

“I want you to apologize.”

Those three lines appeared between Steve’s brows. “To who? For what?”

“To Sir Purr. For being grumpy and yelling.”

Steve groaned. “Don’t you think you’re taking this a little too far?”

“No,” Tony said, scattering tiny kisses across Steve’s neck. “Please. Just do it.”

“I didn’t really do anything.”

“Not all apologies have to happen because you did something,” Tony said. “Sometimes you just say you’re sorry to be nice. Because the other person needs to hear it.”

Steve sighed again. “God, you’re perfect. Why are you so damn perfect?”

Tony nuzzled his neck, kissed the smooth spot under his ear that was _his_ spot. It wasn’t an answer, but Steve took it as one, anyway.

“Sir Purr,” he said, and the feeling of Tony’s lips curving against the skin of his neck gave him the strength to go on. “I’m really sorry for whatever I did to upset you. Really. I hope we can move past it and be friends.”

Sir Purr opened his eyes, glanced once at Steve, then hopped lightly down from the table and left the room.

Tony kissed his throat again, and Steve took him in his arms. “Thank you, baby.”

“Happy now?”

“Yes,” Tony said. “Very. And so was Sir Purr.”

“Oh,” Steve dead-panned. “Goody.”

Tony sunk his teeth into Steve’s neck just a tad too hard. Steve sucked in a breath. “Quit while you’re ahead, Steve.”

Steve kissed Tony to soothe his feelings. It worked. “You’re right, Tony. I’m sorry,” he said, and looked at him through lowered lashes.

Tony shook his head. “Adorable,” he murmured, and Steve laughed. He felt better. Even if the cat-- _Sir Purr_ \--hated him, Tony didn’t. And that’s all he really cared about anyway.

He grasped Tony’s hand. “Come on. Dinner’s getting cold.”

Tony brought Steve’s hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles. “That’s why you’re my best guy.”

“Why? Dinner or the opposable thumbs?”

“I meant dinner, smartass,” Tony said. “But I can think of lots of uses for those thumbs, too.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well, we’ll talk about that later,” Steve said.

When they reached the kitchen, Sir Purr was lying on one of the stools. Steve reached down and trailed one finger over his back as he passed.

Sir Purr arched his back into his touch. Steve smiled his little half-smile.

“Adorable,” Tony said.

**Author's Note:**

> So, Sir Purr is based on an amalgamation of two of the best cats I ever had. They were a mother and son, and I had them both for a long time. The mother, Mr. Bigglesworth (I know. I had watched Austin Powers just one too many times at that point!), was a lean, mean little spitfire who didn't like anyone in my house, but seemed to, for some reason, like me. She was rotten to the core, and I loved her to death. The son, Curly, was a big old softy who would let me carry him around in my arms like a baby for hours. I have never encountered such a sweet-tempered cat in my life, and he loved me as much as I loved him. And now I'm sad because I miss them both so much! Sir Purrari Stark-Rogers is my tribute to them.
> 
> p.s. Steve's right--it is kind of a dumb name. But, as soon as I thought of Tony's cat, the name just popped into my head. Also, I thought it was funny.
> 
> Title from The Cure song.


End file.
